[Does Puerto Rico need a State University? Is it not a dangerous institution where subversive ideas are insinuated, imaginations crackle, religious doubts are cultivated, and the student becomes politicized jeopardizing the moral health of the country? Some might argue that the University has been necessary because it is dangerous, and it has been dangerous because it is necessary].

NUNCA OLIVIDAR
A brief history of the University of Puerto Rico Student Movement

by Alessandra Rosa

Click on the image below to see a digital magazine version of her dissertation excerpt

CLICK ON THE FIRST PHOTO BELOW TO ENLARGE FOR A SLIDE SHOW of the 2010 UPR – Rio Piedras campus student strike highlighting some of the different strategies of resistance students used.

During the first strike the students’ were known as “brincaverjas” or gate jumpers to get in and out of the campus, as well as, manifest themselves on top of the gates.

This is one of the many marches held in support of the student strike!

The students used art and public spaces to deliver the message that education is a right and not a privilege.

For the first strike students locked-down the campus for 62 days!

For the second strike the students protested differently because the police force, SWAT team, and mounted police had taken control of the main campus.

During both strikes the students used the Internet as a way to protest and inform themselves and others of what was going on.

Alessandra Rosa Sociocultural Anthropology, Puerto Rican Studies, Social Movements, Media, National Identity
Alessandra was born and raised in Puerto Rico. In 2004, she graduated with a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in Interpersonal and Multicultural Communications, with minors in Psychology and Spanish Literature. Subsequently, she completed a postgraduate degree at the Universidad de Valladolid, Spain in Economy and Marketing, followed by a Master’s degree at FIU in Advertising and Public Relations. As she began her doctoral studies at FIU in Sociocultural Anthropology, she focused her attention on Puerto Rican issues and later joined the Puerto Rican non-profit organization called Mentes Puertorriqueñas en Acción (MPA). In 2011, she was the director of the summer program, Programa de Apoderamiento y Retención de Agentes de Cambio (PARACa).

Her current research interests center on Puerto Rican studies, with emphasis on social movements, education, national identity and discourses. She is particularly interested in how these intersect and are manifested in the media. At the present, she is conducting her dissertation on the 2010-2011 University of Puerto Rico student strikes and their implications.